Sangam: the Austrialia-India Design Platform is a 3 year program in India and Australia looking at how designers and artisans can work together in an ethical and holistic manner that can help sustain craft and yet enable it to survive well, in a market driven environment.

For the Delhi roundtable event, we created a pattachitra scroll with Bijay Kumar Bariki, an artisan based in Raghurajpur, Odisha. The concept is to combine Indian and Australian visual languages. The Sangam lettering seen here is based on aboriginal art — which is full of concentric forms and forms that are very flowing. There is also a narrative we created through the pattachitra circles (not seen in this image) that tells the story of an Australian designer meeting an Indian artisan and how they work together.